We’re Number One (90)
4890
We left and went back to Carol’s with her, Carl, and Debbie, where we smoked our lungs off and drank to our fill. I brought The Grapes The fraternity bootleg in for their listening enjoyment. I informed the hosts that I would never be able to get to know them, because they were Yankees. This was met with aggressive bewilderment. A mattress set on the floor in another room and the living room sofa were offered for Herb and I to sleep on.
When we awoke in the morning we were met with hot coffee, hot bagels, and hot showers. Carol and Debbie went out of their way to make us feel comfortable. On our way back to the carnival site around eleven Herb and I recollected the terrific random experience we just shared. We had a similar feeling about Carol and Debbie.
“They dug us.”
Carl sent me on my way with $10 and his address so I could fulfill my promise of sending him a Grapes CD when I returned to Athens.
“I’ll do it, by God!”
Sometime around 11:45 we hit the crowds, the street crowd and the parking lot crowd, chanting the equivalent of “We’re number one” and pointing to a cloud.
We heard Widespread Panic being played from a vending truck, and we didn’t feel so far away. Tuesday “Nassau” tickets were easy to find the day before, but 24 hours later a Tuesday ticket was a hot commodity, and could easily be traded for a Sunday ticket.
I discovered that I left The Grapes fraternity late night party bootleg tape at Carol’s.
“Oh well. Carl will probably enjoy it.”
After no luck and running out of time I folded a Mr. Subb tray mat in half and made it into a sign that read “‘m from Athens, GA., need one.”
It had a little silhouette of our nice state and the Atlantic seaboard with a fish jumping and Atlanta and Athens on the state as dots and a little car with bad exhaust. I got some strange looks and funny comments along with smiles tossed my way, but not a ticket.
With no other option in sight I paid a girl $95 for a single ticket, without thinking twice. Everybody needed a ticket, and we were on a mission from God. No elk. Maybe tomorrow. We had a show to go to. Herb liked the Grateful Dead, and we both had a ticket to go.
Losing My Transmission
“If experience were to a human being like a transmission is to a car, what would happen if you lost your experience? Unlikely as it sounds, it is a condition that can exist. I had been operating from this neuropsychological state since 1987, but I wouldn’t even begin to realize it until after 1993 while I was attending the University of Georgia, a Drawing and Painting major and member of a social fraternity.”
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
